Yuuuge arguments from me!!! Even putring that shite from Westshite above the brilliant Spices!!! At least All Saints' two bops, which would slso be in my rop 10, oe Miracles, haven't been yet!

“Fool Again” is very formulaic - slightly better than the others I guess. “American Pie” is so sanitised with its straight rhythms: takes the dynamic storytelling of the song and makes it boring.

32. Mariah Carey feat Westlife - Against All Odds

Rate: 6.5/10

Reason: Full disclosure - I bought this at the time, I was quite Mariah obsessed and thought it was a nice version of the song, and that Westlife's part also wasn't bad. Obviously in retrospect it was an uninspired cover that has that generic production (much glossier than the Mariah-only album version production that was more similar to the original with harder drums). Obviously the same week that I bought this I bought the banger Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation too, and was slightly gutted that didn't get to No.1 instead, being a much more inspired record. But I only have myself to blame. Anyway, I still really don't mind this track, albeit moreso for Mariah than Westlife, and it was cool to see her getting a second No.1 finally at the time, although I highly doubt her solo version would have pulled off the same trick, Westlife was the selling point for most buyers here. But that's Westlife down and out of this rank!

Haven't you made us endure enough Westlife for one day! 😂

31. Oasis - Go Let It Out

Rate: 6.5/10

Reason: I think it's fair to say that Oasis were not at their best at this point, and I don't think even they would argue with that, but if this song finds its way onto their reunion tour setlist this summer then I'll eat my words. The lead single from Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, it obviously did enough to get to No.1 such was their power still at the time, and was followed by No.4 hits Who Feels Love, and Sunday Morning Call, which I believe Noel disliked so much that it was left as a hidden track on their Time Flies album. Anyway, this song is...fine. It's got some nice guitar work, the drum pattern at the start is cool, but Liam's vocal drawl ('go let it oooooooouuuuuutttt') is a bit annoying for me at times and overall it's not a classic.

4 minutes ago, awardinary said:

Haven't you made us endure enough Westlife for one day! 😂

They all had to come somewhere sadly, and at least it wasn't the top ten!

I find that Mariah performance quite affected and I don’t think she improves the track - OK it makes a change not just having Westlife on a track of theirs I suppose.

I really like the instrumental sections in “Go Let It Out” where they pivot towards a Beatles-esque psychedelic sound. Overall I prefer the follow up singles from that album though.

Poor Mariah, having to lower herself to sing wirh THEM!

She should have hit the Spice Girls up instead.

30. Billie Piper - Day & Night

Rate: 7/10

Reason: So into the top 30, and actually I like everything left to a good extent, so over two-thirds of the year's No.1s were good singles to me which is a good strike rate for such a high turnover. A bit like with Geri Halliwell earlier, Billie Piper is one of those rare British female artists who I can probably say I don't love any individual song by, Honey To The Bee coming closest to my affections. Not to say she didn't have some decent pop songs and clearly Day & Night was good enough to give her another No.1 two years after her first mid-teen debut could so easily have left her as a one-album wonder. Influenced by what Britney was doing at the time, she made a strong stab at the same Cheiron style sound herself here and did a very good job at that, but is it a song I put on out of choice? Not really. But it's a shame her pop career fizzled out so soon after this, although a great acting career beckoned.

2 minutes ago, Julian_ said:

I find that Mariah performance quite affected and I don’t think she improves the track - OK it makes a change not just having Westlife on a track of theirs I suppose.

I really like the instrumental sections in “Go Let It Out” where they pivot towards a Beatles-esque psychedelic sound. Overall I prefer the follow up singles from that album though.

Yeah it's not half bad, going back to it today; the instrumental is definitely better than the vocal. In fact the drum intro I've realised is basically the same as the Roxette hit, I Wish I Could Fly, from the previous year, from seven seconds in:

Who Feels Love is the highlight from that, rather poor by their standards, era of Oasis, Go Let It Out is indeed certainly not what I think of when I think classic Oasis tracks.

far too much Westlife obvs but tbf I'd take that to have more tracks at #1 getting a spotlight as a special track of the week, part of why I find 2000's list of #1s so compelling even with as many duds as it has

Omg yas Billie!! A great song. It's a budget Britney track, and sounds like ir ciuld essily have been a fourth or fifth Brirney single.

Ok caught up...

So that final Westlife song was clearly a marketing ploy to try and attract a wider American audience albeit ineffective. The collaboration didn't feel like either artist wanted it at the time but labels pushed it to happen. The result was a very unimpressive #1 from the year. Incidentally I don't think it make it onto any compilation at the time.

For Oasis, I did in fact enjoy that single at the time, it felt anthemic at the time, and I didn't know too many Oasis songs by name at this point despite hearing many of them in the years before. I didn't care for the other releases from this era from them but they improved in their next era for me. The song itself was enough to appear on New Hits 2000 which I was pleased with.

The Billie Piper story is a sad one for me. She had so much star potential and charisma. I ended up enjoying Something Deep Inside more than her #1 of this era even though it never made it onto a Now compilation at the time. I think I've even played Walk Of Life more times than her #1 here but I wish we had so much more from her as a pop star. She had so much energy, good looks and her music was great. I'm glad she at least made the Top 30 here, though I'd wish it was a tad higher.

29. Chicane feat Bryan Adams - Don't Give Up

Rate: 7/10

Reason: Funnily enough, I was out of the country the week this went to No.1, having taken my first flight ever to Tenerife. I was indulging in Euro hits that weren't released here, and internet access was a bit scarce over there at the time so it's not until I got back that I found out this had gone to No.1, somewhat surprisingly in my mind because I was expecting to come back to find out that Five's Don't Wanna Let You Go at No.1 (instead that debuted and peaked at No.9, I still don't know what happened there). I mean, this is a solid dance track, with good verses and a memorable chorus, and Bryan Adams complements Chicane's classic Balearic production vibe surprisingly well (or maybe not such a surprise if you heard his hit mix of Cloud Number Nine), but I prefer basically all of Chicane's other big hits, particularly the beautiful single that immediately followed this, No Ordinary Morning, which flopped at No.28.

Oh what a big song to lose this early on! Looking back, it definitely felt like some sort of contractual repayment for Chicane being an uncredited producer on Cloud Number Nine (a personal favourite of mine for many years). This style of music might have worked well and suited Bryan's vocals, but I don't get the sense that he wanted to be involved, despite appearing in the music video. He never returned to this type of dance music again after that. It still goes down for me as the second best #1 on Now 45 at the time, beaten only by Fragma of course.

The Chicane and Bryan Adams track is a good track and a timely one as the start of the buildup synth riff is so similar to that in Calvin and Clementine's recent song 'Blessings' but the added bit at the end of the riff in 'Don't Give Up' makes it a more interesting song melodically I think!

Day and Night has some great dramatic production!

Westlife and Mariah Carey.

Probably the worst thing ever to be released. I think I would rather listen to anything else in the world than that.

I love the Billie Piper track, but preferred Something Deep Inside.

“Day & Night” is decent but nothing original.

I do think that’s too low for Chicane although I agree he has better tracks. The vocoder immediately made Bryan more interesting.

Just caught up and happy to say no big losses for me so far - I would even say you were quite generous with some of those ratings. 😋 great idea btw!

'Don't Give Up' is my favourite since I last commented! I'm a sucker for Chicane's production style and also enjoy the robotic vocal processing choice in contrast to the optimistic lyrics. That and the music video give it this intriguing dystopian duality.

Something I'm less positive about however... is Zombie Nation being blocked by Westlife/Mariah!